


the others thought of tomorrow but they only remember yesterday

by tigriswolf



Series: meme fics [30]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes is a survivor, Gen, Memory Loss, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Victim Blaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 14:08:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2272659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/pseuds/tigriswolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes does not remember being the Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the others thought of tomorrow but they only remember yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> Title: the others thought of tomorrow but they only remember yesterday  
> Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Sara Teasdale  
> Warnings: discussion of torture; suicidal thoughts; victim blaming by the victim; a little bit of self-harm  
> Pairings: Steve/Buckyish?  
> Rating: PG  
> Wordcount: 1490  
> Point of view: third  
> Prompt: _Bucky - temporary anterograde amnesia_
> 
>  
> 
> _He remembers that he was - **is** Bucky Barnes._
> 
>  
> 
> _After a while, he remembers Steve and their childhood, he remembers the war, being rescued by him. He even remembers after he fell and was found by Hydra. He, unfortunately, remembers having his arm replaced and when they began conditioning and torturing him._
> 
>  
> 
> _But after they started using the shocks, things go fuzzy, and then blank._
> 
>  
> 
> _He doesn't remember ever being the Winter Soldier._
> 
>  
> 
> _(Or: The continued electric-shocks and cryo-freezing caused brain damage, which kept Bucky from being able to form new memories, as well as remembering who he was. After escaping Hydra, the serum in his blood is finally able to heal the damage. But his time as the Soldier is nothing but a blank space, because those memories never existed in his mind.)_

Bucky wakes up and nothing _hurts_ \-- Steve and the guys must’ve found him. 

But it’s too quiet. And he can _feel his left arm_ \-- he stays still and silent, doesn’t change his breathing. Won’t be the first time they test him, try to trick him, just to see what he’ll do. 

He almost got out, once. They were really happy that time. Gave him extra food. The fuckers. 

He tries to remember the last thing that happened and it makes a sharp pain shoot through his temple. Hurts don’t really bother him anymore so he keeps going anyway, but it’s confusing. He remembers them chattering about a new experimental procedure, recalibration or something. But he also remembers wandering through an unfamiliar city trying to hide from… everybody?

And he remembers Steve stretched out on a riverbank, but it’s so raggedy – Bucky knows that never happened, not with Steve so injured, not unconscious. 

He listens as hard as he can, holding his breath. It sounds like a city, like home did. Not like Hydra’s testing rooms or his cell. He opens his eyes. 

.

It makes no sense, but he’s apparently bedded down in an abandoned building in Baltimore, Maryland. Oh, yeah, and he’s got a metal arm. And it’s two thousand and fucking fourteen. He remembers – he remembers Christmas in 1944, giving Steve a new set of pencils, that’s the last thing he remembers before Hydra, and he has no idea how long Hydra had him and now it’s halfway through 2014. 

He has some sort of fit and when he comes to the sun has set. He’s hungry; he can’t even remember eating in – decades.

What happened to Steve and the boys? Did he escape Hydra on his own at some point? The last thing he remembers -- _Bring him to the recalibration chamber_ , the little doctor ordered. And he hadn’t even bothered fighting, too hungry and too cold. But there’s nothing from there to Steve on a riverbank, and that makes no sense at all. 

But maybe he’s too hungry to make sense of anything. Bucky quickly goes through his supplies, which is a stack of bills all dated 2012, ratty clothes, enough weapons to take out a Hydra base by himself, and a pair of really nice boots. 

He needs to not draw attention to himself, which means getting clean before looking for food. 

“You can do this, Barnes,” he tells himself, pulling on the boots. “Get clean, get food, and then find Steve.” 

It’s a goddamned masterpiece of a plan compared to some of the foolhardy shit they did in Europe. 

.

He can’t decide if he likes the food in the future. He gets a number 1 at a place called McDonald’s and it’s… odd. He eats it and feels sick afterward, but he doesn’t know if it’s ‘cause the food’s bad or ‘cause he hasn’t eaten in awhile.

He reads the paper while he eats; on page 2, there’s a blurb about a gunman with a metal arm and how the search for his body has finally been called off. The madman fought Captain America before vanishing. 

_Fought Captain America?_ Bucky thinks. Inside its dark glove, the metal hand clenches into a fist. It can’t be him, right? He’d never fight Steve. He’d be guarding Steve’s back and shooting anyone who got too close. 

He needs more intel. So while he finishes off the French fries, he studies the people sitting around him in the McDonald’s – most of them are on little communicator devices that Gabe would’ve killed for. Stark had something like it, but a whole lot bigger. Larger versions are on a few tables with people tapping away. 

Bucky needs one of those, then. He can figure out how they work after. 

.

One of the businessmen gets up and leaves his smaller device next to the larger one. Bucky can see that the screen is still open; it’ll lock itself in about a minute, which he determined by watching one of the kids a table over play with one. 

So he stands, bins the trash, and swipes the smaller device on his way past. Once he’s out the door, he keeps touching the screen so it won’t lock until he can find a quiet place to figure the device out. 

“What the fuck are all these buttons?” he mutters, glaring down at the screen. “Fuck.” 

He eventually determines how to change the passcode and sets it to Steve’s birthday. It takes him about half an hour to find the thing called “Safari” which leads to an enormous database of information. He searches Captain America and Project Insight, both mentioned in the newspaper article. 

When the pictures come up, he looks at the madman with the metal arm, muzzled and masked, and recognizes himself. 

.

When the “iphone” reaches 10% battery, Bucky leaves it on the sink in a public restroom. He steals another on the way out, when he passes a harried father with three boys.

He can’t go to Steve. Not until he understands exactly what’s happening, how he got here, how that guy on the bridge could be _him_.

Seventy years unaccounted for. How Steve’s here makes sense, insomuch as anything about Steve ever does. But Bucky? How… how did Hydra even get their hands on him again? 

_Bring him to the recalibration chamber._ He shudders, accidently deforming the device with the metal hand. Shit, he’ll have to get a new one. 

Hydra’s still around. The intel on Project Insight proved that. And Hydra had him in his last accurate memories. So… he glances down at his arsenal, weapons he does not remember collecting. According to “google,” Steve put a plane in the ice after killing Schmidt, but that didn’t get rid of Hydra. If they had him, then… but how… 

What was the last mission? It… it was cold.

Bucky closes his eyes, sagging down. The wall is hard when he slams his head back, and he does it again because he has no one to rage at. No one but himself. 

Whatever the fuck recalibration is… he was Hydra’s weapon. And they used him against Steve. They used him for how many years? _When_ was he recalibrated? When did they get him? 

Why didn’t Steve ever come for him? 

_No_. Steve put a plane in the ice, that’s why. Steve put plane in the ice to save the whole world from Schmidt’s madness, and that’s more important than any one person’s life. 

If he wants answers, he’ll have to go find them. Figure it out and then go to Steve, tell him how fucking sorry Bucky is for being so weak, for letting Hydra recalibrate him. 

Yeah. That’s the plan. 

And try not to get caught again, he thinks, shuddering at the thought. No. He throws what’s left of the phone at the far wall and begins packing up his supplies. He won’t let them capture him again, even if he has to kill himself. 

Maybe that would be better, anyway. That madman who fought Steve – whatever it took to turn Bucky into that, it’s already been proven it can be done. Whatever the cost, it can’t happen again. 

.

Hydra’s gone underground, of course. And Bucky doesn’t know the twists and turns of this future, but some things don’t change, and genocidal Nazi cults are one of them. 

The outpost in Baltimore doesn’t have much but it does give him the eastern seaboard locations, so that’s as good a place as any to start. 

If he destroys Hydra, maybe that’ll start making things up to Steve. 

.

When he sleeps (not often), he dreams of a chair. A voice asks, “What if it doesn’t work?” 

Someone else answers, “Then we try again until it does.” 

The last mission was cold, and Steve is lying on a riverbank, bloody and unconscious, and Bucky has a metal arm that can punch through brick, and he doesn’t remember – he doesn’t even _know_ how _long_ he doesn’t remember.

He wants to find Steve but he can’t, not yet. Not until he knows it’s safe. Not until he knows he can’t ever be recalibrated again. 

The outpost in Atlanta even gives him a name for Hydra’s weapon: Winter Soldier. It fits, he thinks. The last mission was cold and… his blood was so red on the snow. 

It’s the hottest months of the year now, though, and he’s not cold anymore. 

.

(“Bucky?” Steve shouts as Bucky’s vanishing into the night outside the safehouse in Rome. If he’d known Steve and – whoever’s with Steve now were hitting it, he would’ve gone to another country entirely. 

But he can’t – he pivots and shouts back, “Not yet!” because it’s not time, there’s still too much of Hydra left, but he’s alive, and Steve’s alive, and – 

“Bucky!” Steve shouts again but Bucky doesn’t look back. He’s doing this for Steve, same as he’s always done, whether Steve likes it or not.)


End file.
